Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-05-02

table to curse your children, and blast
with their internal fires generations un-
born. You find these books in the desk
of the school miss, in the trunk Of the
young man, in the steamboat cabin, on
the table of the hotel reception room.
YOu see light in your child's room late
at night. You suddenly go in and say:
WHAT ARE YOU DoING?"
81 am reading" "What are you read
ing?' "a book" You look at the book
it is a bad book. where did you get it?"
II borrowed it." Alas, there are always
those abroad who would like to loan your
son or daughter bad book! Everywhere,
everywhere an uncleal, literature. l
charge upon it the destruction of ten thou
sand immortal souls. and l bid you this
morning wake up to the magnitude of the
theme. shall take all the worlds litera-
ture-good novels and bad, travels true
and false, histories faithful and incorrect,
legends beautiful and monstrous, all
tracts, all chronicles, all epilogues, all
family, city, State and national libraries
and pile them up in a pyramid Of -litera,
ture, and then shall bring to bear upon
it some grand, glorious, infallible, unmis-
taxable Christian principles. God help
me to speak with reference to my last &C.
count, and God help you to listen.
charge You, in the first place, to stand
alOof from all books that give
FALSE PICTURES OF HUMAN LIFE.
Life is neither a tragedy nor farce.
Men are not all either kuaves or heroes.
Women are neither angels nor furies. And
yet, if You depended upon much of the
literature of the day, you would get the
idea that life, instead of being something
earnest, something practical, is a fitful and
fantastic and extravagant thing. How
poorly prepared are that young man and
woman for the duties of to-day who spent
last night wading through brilliant passages
descriptive of magnificent knavery and
wickednesS! The man will be looking al
day long for his heroine, in the tin shop
by the forge, in the factory, in the count
ipg.roOm, and he will not find her, and ht
will be dissatisfied. A man who give;
himself up to the
INDISCRIMINATE READING OF NOVELS
will be nerveleSs, inaue and nuisance. liz
will be fit neither for the store, nor thu
shop, nor the field. A woman who give:
herself up to the indiscriminate reading o.
novels will be untitled for the duties o
wife, mother, sister, daughter. There sht
is, hair dishevelled, countenance vacant
cheeks pale, hands trembling, bursting
into tears at midnight over the fate o
soIlc unfortunate lover; IN the daytime
when she Ought TO be busy, staring by thu
half hour at nothing; biting her tingeI
nails into the quick. The carpet, tina
was plain before, will be palmer after hav
ing wandered through romance all nigh
long in tesselated halls of castles. Ant
your industrious companion will he NOR
unattractive than ever, now that you have
walked in the romance through parks will
plumed princeSses, or lOunged in the arbO
with the polished desperate. ., thes'
confirmed novel readers They are un
fitted for this life, which is a tremendou
discipline. They know not how to x
through
THE FURNACES OF TRIAL
through which they must pass, and the.
we gain we achieve by hard, long-continu
ing and exhaustive work.
Again, abstain from all those book
which, while they have some good thing
about them, have also an admixture O
evil. You have read books that had tw'
elements in them-the good and the bad
Which stuck 10 your The badi Tn
heart Of most people is like q sieve, whicl
lets the small particles Of gold fall through
but keeps the great cinders. Once in
while there is mind like loadstOne
which, plunged amid steel and brass fill
ings, gathers up the steel and repels tn
brass. But it is generally just the oppo
site. If you attempt to plunge through
hedge of buIs TO get one blackberry yOU
will get more burrS than blackberries
You cannot afford to reai q bad boOl
however good you are. You say:
THE INFLUENCE IS INsIGNIFICANT. "
tell you that the scratch of pin ha
sometimes produced the lock; jaw. Alas
if through curiosity, "a many do, you pry
into an evil book, your curiosity is a
dangerous as that of the nan who wOulC
take torch into gun-pOwder mill mere
ly TO see whether it would really blow M
or not. In a menagerie in New York, {
man put his arm through the bars of {
black leOpard's cage. The animals hide
looked 80 sleek, and bright, and beautiful
He Just strOked il once. The monster
seized him, and he drew forth hand torn
and mangled, and bleeding. o, touch moi
evil, even with the faintest stroke! Though
it may be glossy and beautiful, touch il
not, lest you pull forth your soul torn and
bleeding under the clutch Of the black
leopard. But" you say, "hOw can
find out whether book is good or bad
without reading it?" There is always
something suspicious about bad book
/ never knew au exception-sOmet1 1inl
suspicious in the index or style of illus
tratiOn.
THIS vEEEMoUs REPTILE
almost always carries warning rattle.
Again; charge you to stand of from al
those books which corrupt the imagination
and inaame the passions do not refel
now to that kind of book which the vii
lain has under his coat waiting for tn,
school to get out and then, looking both
ways 10 see that there is no policeman
around the block, offers the book to youI
boy on his way home. do not speak oI
that kind of literature, but that which
evades the law and comes out in polisheG
style. and with acute plot sounds the toe
,in that rOuses up all the baser passions o.
the soul. To-day, under the Dostrils o.
this land, there is fetid, reeking, unwashed
literature enough to poison all the foun
taius Of public virtue, and smite your som
and daughters as with the wing Of de,
stroying angel, and it is time that the min
is.ers OF the Gospel blew the trumpet and
rolled the forces Of righteousness, al
armed to the teeth, in this great battle
against deprayed literature.
Again: Abstain from those books which
are